A STUDY ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF THE CONGRESSIONAL LIAISON SYSTEM IN THE MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE R.O.C.
Abstract
With the implementation of the Defense Act and the Organization Law of the Ministry of National Defense in 2002, all defense-related matters became formally regulated by law. The relationship between the military and other civilian agencies in the government are therefore of vital importance to national security and defense development. Especially the relationship with Congress, it could influence not only the approval of defense budgets and legislative proposals regarding armed forces, but also the development of military organizations.
Based on the author¡¦s previous experience serving as an MND congressional liaison officer, there are some issues need to be worked out, and they become the research motives of this study:
Due to confrontations between the Administration and Congress, defense related matters are constantly questioned by lawmakers and encounter considerable difficulties, the author wanted to identify whether the source of this problem is the legal system itself, the personnel involved, or the effectiveness of current congressional liaison system.
Since the operation of current military congressional liaison teams depend only on personal experiences and lack professional expertise from related fields such as political science, media propaganda, public relations, administrative management, policy marketing, etc., liaison officers are forced to explore the delicate interactions between the Administration and Legislation all by themselves. Furthermore, liaison personnel from different levels fail to integrate effectively and can not cooperate functionally with the Office of Military Spokesmen. With the above shortcomings, current military liaison teams can only be regarded as congressional contacts, the author would like to provide helpful recommendations through this practical research.
Since the MND was among the first few government agencies that established corresponding congressional liaison teams, there are a lot of references available. This research took a qualitative approach, related studies, then interviews with legislators, MND officials, congressional staff, media reporters, and officers serving as (or used to be) military congressional liaisons were conducted and analyzed to investigate the function and effectiveness of current MND congressional liaison system.
The first objective of this research is to clearly define the role and functions of the MND congressional liaison system and to enhance its effectiveness in the interactions between the military and Congress. The second objective is to help MND congressional liaison personnel establish enough professional expertise and knowledge to facilitate appropriate approvals of defense budgets and legislative proposals while maintaining a politically neutral stand under the omnipresent political pressures from opposing parties. The third objective of this research is to provide findings and recommendations for the establishment of MND congressional liaison system by examining current liaison procedures from different aspects such as military relations, public policies, issue management, policy marketing, propaganda, and public relations, as well as by investigating the effectiveness of the operations of current liaison system from in-depth interviews with professionals.
The Congress plays as a role of Constitutional politics due to the process of making defence policies. Congressional liaison system is main organization of MND for communicating, assisting law makers to conduct the responsibilities of supervising the Constitution. Also, it is the bridge and interface for obtaining ¡§support defence policies ¡¨ from public, political parties and excellent politicians. This article provides recommendations of academics and policies, and as a reference of creating congressional liaison system, focus on organizations, law and regulations, personnel and operations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0912105-141449 |
| Date | 12 September 2005 |
| Creators | Lin, Tien-Liang |
| Contributors | Wen-Chun Chen, Da-Chi Liao, Yi-Wen Chiang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0912105-141449 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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